Farewell

On Moscow's Belorussku Station platform last week, a jolly crowd of ambassadors, ministers, diplomats bade an informal farewell to U. S. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, who was leaving for his new post at Brussels. As the train pulled out. a messenger from the Kremlin rushed up to Mr. Davies, handed him a small flat parcel. Inside were autographed pictures of Joseph Stalin and Premier Viacheslav M. Molotov.

This unusual parting gift to the U. S. capitalist-diplomat from the Soviet Union's Communist rulers was the last of a series of cordial farewells terminating Mr. Davies' 18 months' ambassadorship in Moscow. Most unusual feature of the farewells was a two-hour talk (subjects unrevealed) with Dictator Stalin himself. Two days before their departure, Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinoff gave a farewell dinner to Mr. & Mrs. Davies and the Embassy staff. Tipping a glass of champagne in a toast to President Roosevelt. Commissar Litvinoff declared there was a "latent mutual sympathy'' between the U. S. and Soviet Russia, asked Ambassador Davies to pass on to America the "unbiased judgments'' of his elaborate studies of Soviet industrial life.

No foreign diplomat, U. S. or otherwise, has ever received kindnesses from Soviet Russia equal to that accorded Mr. Davies, whose outright position as a U. S. money man left room for no ambiguity or misunderstanding between him and his official hosts. Few have shown in return the same interest in the Soviet Union. First arriving in Moscow with a large entourage and a railroad car of frozen delicacies, Ambassador Davies immediately won the Soviet Union's friendship by his elaborate entertainments for Soviet officials, by two long trips and many minor ones through the interior. Once he dined all Russia's important Commissars and their wives, ending the night's festivities with a showing of the cinema Naughty Marietta. Another time he wound up the season's social program with a dinner for three rarely dined Red Army marshals.*

Mr. and Mrs. Davies made a final trip, which ended fortnight ago, through the Ukraine and the Black Sea area. To the inhabitants of Caucasian and Crimean ports the sight of the Davies 316-foot yacht Sea Cloud was a never-ending diversion. They thronged the piers to watch the Ambassador step from the yacht's speedy trim launch manned by snappily costumed, briskly saluting seamen.

Despite his expressed pro-capitalist opinions. Ambassador Davies showed an appreciation and open-mindedness about the country. On his last trip alone, Mr. Davies reportedly wrote 28 reports on Soviet building for the State Department's confidential files at Washington.

*One of these, famed Marshal Tukhachevsky was "purged" as a foreign spy three months later.

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